


Seraphim

by thephoenixwitch



Category: Frank Iero - Fandom, Gerard Way - Fandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - No My Chemical Romance, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Artist Gerard Way, Dylan Thomas Poetry, Frerard, M/M, Members of Fall Out Boy, Pre-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy), Revenge Era Frank Iero, Revenge Era Gerard Way, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge Era, Vampire Gerard Way, Vampire Hunter Frank Iero, Vampire Hunters, Vampire Slayer(s), Vampires, fall out boy - Freeform, my chemical romance - Freeform, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:00:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23916430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephoenixwitch/pseuds/thephoenixwitch
Summary: 24-year-old Frank Iero has been in the business of vampire hunting for a number of years. When undead-related violence reaches a crescendo in his small northern town, he finds himself faced with stakes higher than ever before. What complicates things, however, all starts late one night with a man in the back of a cafe.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Mikey Way/Pete Wentz
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Seraphim

Rain in October was never not hell, but this year the temperatures were biting more than ever, it seemed, and for a lone traveler caught in the midst of this in the dead of night-- well, it was something different altogether.

It wasn't as if the man was here against his will, though; he knew exactly what he was doing and how to deal with it, even if that meant wrapping himself tightly in his trench coat as the wind and water stung his otherwise numb face.

No. He was more than prepared, or so that was the way it had been for years now. Despite being young, Frank had been through his fair share of hells to contend with. Tonight was no different, he thought, and he kept the gun at his side and the stake gripped in his fist, his hands pale under the ragged finger less gloves that covered them. Black hair sweeped into his right eye, contrasting sharply with the bright red he kept hidden at the sides; it and his face were shrouded under his hood and behind a tattered grey scarf. Nobody could see anything extraordinary about him, much less the weapons he kept well-concealed. His combat boots raked quietly over the rocky paths, leaves barely crunching under his feet.

Frank made sure his peripheral vision covered practically everything in front of and beyond him in any direction, his head on a swivel to stay clear of attack-- or better yet, attack first.

For the moment, however, everything was silent but the swaying of the half-dead leaves in the canopies above him.

Crouching down slightly as he made his way out of the woods and onto a clearing that outlooked the ancient buildings down below, Frank kept his hands on the grass and rocks before beginning the steep descent downwards. This was also something that, without fail, could spark the tiniest bit of pure panic in him every so often, given how vulnerable he was when he did this; anything could happen to Frank while he was trying to make his way down the sharp and jagged incline of the hill, the soil dry and bleak like death but the city lights glimmering weakly below.

Finally, mercifully, Frank sprinted off the bottom of the incline, hand on his gun, and managed to make it past the crumbling offshoot road of the highway that bridged the gap between the woodlands and the small town before he had time to catch his breath. He could feel his eyelids weighing heavily as if melting from his skull slowly but surely, and he became acutely aware of the intensity of his shivering, so without much thinking involved he ducked into the nearest cafe, sighing at the light and warmth that enveloped him.

Frank slid into a booth in the corner, allowing himself to shakily remove his gloves and try to process the familiar pounding headache that came with these excursions. He's gotten either very lucky or not much luck depending on which perspective you viewed from; on the one hand, he was virtually unscathed, while on the other, he had knocked off but a single one of those things tonight. The threat had been building at rapid speed, and every one of them dead was another twenty living people-- slacking off, Frank had decided long ago, wasn't an option.

Whatever. Fuck it, he thought, and leaned back into the booth, soaking in the warmth.

"He- _llo_ ," the waitress said when she clicked her heels over to his table, unusually cheerful for someone in a 24-hour diner at practically midnight. Frank could see it in her eyes, though, that she was far more miserable than she was letting on. Everyone was, and he was good at reading into that sort of thing. Emotion, really, became a cold and clinical thing in his profession rather than a tangible one, it could be observed, but he could barely remember the last time he'd let it ache him.

_If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you._

He could never afford to let that thought consume him, but he would would be lying if he said it wasn't there far too often than he liked.

"Sir? Can I get you coffee, or something?"

Frank blinked, still moored in his daze. "Oh- uh, yeah, that's fine. Actually, yeah. Please." He rubbed his temple, trying to gather himself. The waitress went off to get the coffee, and he stared out the somewhat grimy window with a frequent sort of hollowness eating at him.

Not enough to make him cave in here, in some dingy cafe he'd been in one too many times in this shit town he was losing his mind to help keep as livable as possible given the events of current. He'd save the breaking down for later, alone.

It was as he reminded himself of all of this that the little bell at the top of the door let out a soft ring.

Frank studied the customer with distant interest, a part of him wondering what kind of madness brought him to this place at this time, too. The stranger was a fairly young-looking man, black hair hanging long in his pale face and wearing a long, dark cardigan. A striped scarf hung loosely from his neck, doing little to protect him from the fervor outside the cafe doors. For a brief moment, he returned Frank's glance with a weary grin, then sat down at the front counter.

Frank returned to staring out the window, waiting and trying to think as little as possible.

Suddenly a steaming mug was set in front of him, and he gratefully took it, focusing in on the heat. He didn't care about the way the liquid burned slightly as he gulped it down, he just needed the energy and the warmth. Across the cafe, the stranger stared at him curiously. Frank pulled out a small and battered notebook, opening the worn cover and flicking to the latest entries and drinking down more coffee quickly, just as there was a sudden thump across from him.

"You an adrenaline junkie or something?"

The man was sitting directly across from Frank, nodding at his vice grip on the ceramic mug. Frank set it down, mildly taken aback but taking it in stride all the same. The stranger followed in suit of him and pulled out his own bound book, offering it in his direction as if to trade.

"Uh- um. This is just my work book, really. There's nothing of substance in it," Frank said awkwardly, but taking the notebook and handing him his. The man smiled, shaking his head.

"On the contrary, I think the inner workings of a vampire slayer's methodology are pretty damn intriguing," he told Frank as he scanned the pages of the journal. Frank laughed. "Yeah, maybe not when you have to deal with this shit 24/7."

"That's awfully gutsy of you, though, right?" he gazed up at Frank through his eyelashes, still halfway observing the pages.

"Uh. Not really. I mean, theoretically yes, but at this point it doesn't feel that way, honestly. It mostly just gets old and drives you up the wall." Frank ran his hand against the back of his neck, starting to wonder exactly how this situation came to be in the first place. People didn't talk much around here, and definitely not so casually out of the blue with a complete stranger.

"Hm. I don't know if I'd rather be scared out of my mind or bored to death, if I'm being honest," the man whispered. Frank eyed him, interested by his weird statement.

"Really."

"Really really. I don't do well with boredom, but luckily this town doesn't appear to have an issue with that."

Frank processed this, coffee long forgotten, his hand still resting on the man's book, prepared to open it. Eventually he did, and was met with the reds and silvers of a macabre drawing, a mass of skeletons and blood exploding onto the page in confident lines and swirls.

"So you're an artist," Frank noted. "You got a name?"

The man studied him, smiling slightly.

"Gee. And if the woman behind the counter wasn't spinning yarns, you're Frank, right?"

Frank was honestly surprised he evidently came here often enough to be identified by name, but he brushed that off and nodded.

"These are really good," he told Gee, flipping through page upon page of dark and haunting images, the perfect shading and realness about their graphic novel like meticulousness jumping out from the heavy paper. "Seriously. I haven't seen anything this...beautiful in a long fucking time," he assured.

"Well. That's quite a compliment, thanks. It's a work in progress."

Frank handed Gee the sketchbook back, and the two slowly fell into the rhythm of conversation. Frank was weary from the sort of life he lived, and Gee was losing hope from all he was doing to make it as an artist with such little results.

They were both disillusioned, in very different ways, but this mutual string connected them from the beginning.

Frank was right: people didn't really talk here. But he was okay with this exception.

***

The next morning was, unbelievably, colder than the previous night. The fog hung low and thick, wound through the woods and the town alike. For a Monday morning it was depressingly sparse on the streets, what with all that had rocked the town to its core for several years onward now.

The blurry haze meant little to Frank, though. Either way, he still had work to do, and this was something that would never change even if he had any other options; he was in too deep, too devoted to what he did to forgive himself for giving it up. Throwing some food and cash into his backpack, Frank slung the bag over his shoulder and shoved on his gloves, closing the creaking apartment door behind him as he left.

The walk to the Warehouse wasn't ideal, but his pension was barely enough to get him what he already had, so he had no choice but to trudge through the nipping cold for the millionth time. A lone person or two nodded in acknowledgment as he made his way through the streets, hands shoved in his pockets and his headphones on-- maybe not the best idea, he knew, but few vamps would be dumb enough to jump him in broad daylight, and he kept one ear open anyway. This was routine, as it had always been.

The Warehouse was, at first glace, exactly what its name proclaimed it to be: an abandoned and run down former storage space, standing since the early seventies or so. It actual use, however, was something wildly different. In a manner of speaking, it was the headquarters of the entire community, some local shop booths and on occasion under-the-table black market business going on inside; its main purpose, however, was to serve as the center of the local slayer operations. Which was as fucked as it sounded, actually, Frank thought blithely. He approached the tired building, blinking out his watering eyes from the chill.

"Hey. Frank."

For a split second, he considered pretending he didn't hear it, but then again he didn't really know why this compulsion came over him. He was getting more and more freaked out by his own brain lately, but was that really anything new?

"'Morning," he said halfheartedly in the direction of Ray, who looked distinctly like he'd seen much better days.

_Haven't we all_ , he muttered to himself.

The back entrance of the Warehouse creaked open, the heavy door held open by a shorter man in a faded denim jacket and a crooked baseball cap. Patrick nodded to the few people who were gathered on the grounds in conversation, and pointed at the two.

"Iero, Toro? You guys alright?"

"Dandy. Living life in luxury, you?" Ray responded with a hint of deadpan in his voice, Frank rolling his eyes. Patrick threaded his way over to them, papers and notebooks clutched under his arm and his glasses somewhat askew. "Listen, there was some nasty freaking attack down a few miles off from the city limits. Like, a goddamn massacre. They're putting out emergency warnings and stuff, but nobody really knows how much shit we're in. They reported at least thirty of them," Patrick muttered, tapping the papers on the top of his stack. "Pretty sure they're sending a group of slayers out by this afternoon to see what's going on."

Ray ran his hand through his hair, absorbing the impact of the what they'd just been informed. Frank, however, could only feel a sinking sensation in his gut; it'd been a couple weeks since something like this had taken place, and the news just kept coming. He wasn't the least bit surprised.

"Do they need more volunteers, or--" he began, but Patrick shook his head dismissively. "No, that's what I asked, they've already got the numbers for it. Some people keep going on about it not being smart to do this so suddenly, but honestly? How else are we supposed to prepare for it?" he exhaled, and jerked his thumb in the direction of the building. "Anyway, I was figuring we could go over our stats. Andy's not here, everything kind of a mess, so I've just been sitting around reviewing stuff, mostly."

They ended up gathered in an old makeshift office cubicle, trading numbers and stories over their varied endeavors since the last time they had gathered, the space heaters hooked up around the building doing little to keep them warm. It was business as usual, with the added bonus of frantic speculation over the latest major disaster.

By the afternoon the three gathered up the necessary components and started up one of the few dozen old cars sitting in the parking lot-- a desolate place, with weeds growing in every crack and some vehicles that hadn't been used in years remaining idle in their places. Like everything in this town, it was hollow and sad as hell, but they made it work.

The goal, anyway, was to head out to a reported location and get a group search under their belts; safety came in numbers, and when one's hunting down vampires, that's pretty damn important. Frank quickly learned long ago how important it was to keep within good company, but that didn't stop his numerous obsessive escapades on his own like that of last night.

Patrick kept an eye on their directions, pointing the various turns as they ventured off road with Ray behind the wheel.

"Okay, how close are we to high activity, now?" Ray asked him, slowly pushing the brake and pulling out his gun to hold by the steering wheel. "We're only a couple miles out, but I'm thinking this is as far as we can take the car."

Patrick chewed on his lip, folding up their marker-notated map and flipping through his documents.

"Go a little further. A mile or two, we're outside the warning zone, but honestly, when does that ever matter?"

Frank watched the two from the backseat, running his fingers over his stake; the dagger was razor-sharp and lined with aspen wood, shaped roughly like a cross with the addition of the hilt for tradition's sake. This knife had seen far more than anyone unfamiliar with their line of work could imagine.

"We're in the outskirts," he said. "Yeah, it's still daylight, technically, but it's about to hit dark and there's plenty of them too thirsty to give a shit anymore," Frank added, referring to the uncomfortable burning sensation every vamp was bound to feel in the heat of the bright sun. That didn't stop a good amount of them, though, so a day job was still worth their time; however, this was something that they had saved for near sundown. There were probably some newborns, bloodthirsty shells of people trying to figure out how the fuck to deal with their unrelenting hunger; very rarely did these rookies ever turn anyone-- they just sucked them dry, brutalizing people to deal with the clouded urge in their mind.

Some urban legends and ghost stories told that there were vamps who were beyond that, who had learned to control their thirst and remove themselves from the violence, but their kind were a cult; Frank knew nothing from his own experience besides monsters, heartless madmen.

"So what do you suggest, then?" Patrick asked him, twisted around in the passenger seat.

"This shit's gonna be the death of us," Frank began, taking his pistol out of his backpack in lieu of Ray and positioning out the window, preparing himself.

"We might as well keeping driving."

Night fell upon them within the hour, and they remained in the car, weapons positioned and data analyzed.

Ray was on his phone, speaking in a hushed tone to one of the Warehouse coordinators, Andy. He scribbled down notes and coordinates, nodding and double-checking everything before he hung up.

"He says we're right against the high activity line, so let's get this shit over with," Ray announced with a sigh, and the three climbed quietly out of the car with their materials.

They were up against a large cluster of forest, trees gradually growing closer and closer together as Frank pulled on a cheap pair of night vision goggles and tightened the scarf around his neck, the cold gnawing on him another ten degrees worse than the night before. He keep a steady eye on Ray and Patrick, each of them making sure to stay close to the others.

A split-second rustling came from their left, Patrick whipped around with his gun pointed and his dagger raised.

The sound stopped as quickly as it had begun, and nothing was in sight, but Frank's breath hitched as he mentally prepared himself for the inevitable, whether it was now or later tonight.

A soft growling sigh barely registered, and within seconds Ray fired three firm shots and pinned the vamp to the ground.

The bullets could never kill a being as strong as them, but it bought them enough weakness to get on with the ultimate goal: driving the blade straight into the heart until the life (or whatever you could call the sentience of these wrecked people, Frank thought) drained from their ruby eyes. It was all familiar, ingrained in his mind, the strongest and bleakest of all his memories and experiences. He killed every day, but at least he killed monsters; and at least he had the heart to even call it killing anymore.

"Listen, I have friends on the _other side_ , spirits, _and you_ _can't stop them_ \--" the vamp clawed upward before ray's stake was pierced in their chest, bringing out a low groan and causing them to finally still. No blood ran from the wound, and the blade was pulled from the ghostly white and cold skin with nothing but a clean cut in its wake.

"Well. That was anticlimactically fast," Ray said as he examined the body, checking for any signs of life and cutting an X into the chest for clarity. "This kid can't be more than what, eighteen? Probably a newborn. He was ice cold and unable to hide a thing from the moment I saw him."

Weak. That's what this one was; the more powerful the vampire, the easier it was for them to hide away the signs of what they were. Frank recalled the night he struck down a vampire with crystal blue eyes and not a fang in sight, so nearly human that it reached inside his gut in a way deeper than he'd felt in a long while.

"We're in a pretty stressed area... I'm thinking we should've called for backup, y'know."

"Shh, Patrick, Jesus. I think we're already onto another, hold on." Ray whispered, the body of the slain vamp far behind their trail.

A sharp gasp sounded out as Frank whipped around, jagged fingernails digging into the trigger as he saw a figure in the close distance; his instinct brought the pistol to the face of the vamp they'd caught, momentarily throwing them off. Upon seeing his company, they jumped away, gun trembling but still firm in their hand as the ignored the gash in their face.

A young girl, maybe sixteen. Ray's bullets tore through her arm with Frank's, but she held up a hand.

"Okay. Okay--" she began, ducking as another bullet slashed her eye.

"I've stopped, I'm not gonna-- I would never, please, dear god, I fucking stopped. Please!" she was begging, crimson eyes wide as she gripped at the dirt.

Frank could read the terror in her eyes, but the red shimmered darkly in them all the same. She pleaded silently, crying without the ability to make tears, the emotion palpable. But Frank knew the empty words were a trick.

Without another thought, Frank had his stake through her heart.

They moved onward, and though the image taunted him in his mental eye, he reminded himself how little he could afford to care.

***

"You're not shy, just guarded, y'know? I think I understand that, but I think I have a problem with letting people in too easily." Gee- or rather, Gerard, as he had explained-- stirred the sugar into his coffee, eyes focused on Frank with the same curious interest he'd come to familiarize himself with.

"I don't...I don't know. I don't think that's a bad thing, Gee. I think I'm just a bit too fucked up for my head to allow that. I wish I had that."

Gerard giggled, the sound soft and fluttering lightly against this warm feeling in Frank's chest. "Yeah, my brother says it's gonna be the end of me, but I try to tell him that."

It was day five of their newfound routine: they were both regulars at this cafe, and Frank was beginning to remember exactly how liberating the feeling of having someone to exchange words over a morning cup of coffee was. It was getting to the point where each time they said their casual goodbyes Frank felt a tinge of disappointment. He wasn't one to make much in the way of friends, and who knew how long this would last. It was nice to have somebody who was so comfortable with sharing their stories, their interests and passions, and between their mutual love for music and their intrigue with each others' very different lifestyles, they'd managed to forge a small bond.

Still, Frank was starting to feel the omniscient wave of his work swallowing him as he tried to carry on about a halfway normal life otherwise. The group of slayers sent out to search the disaster area were returning in a staggered manner, varied reports flowing into the data system and people starting to wonder about those that were still out there. It was unusual for something this big to yield such little information upon investigation, and the Warehouse was running on threads of adrenaline-soaked local vamp hunters coming there practically every day for hope of news, of cracking further into the mess of the investigation, of trying to hold out on the thought that some day this wouldn't be their daily life.

"Anyway." Gee looked down, almost shyly, but his confident face returned quickly. "I guess you'd better get going, do that badass shit of yours."

Frank smiled, genuinely. It was often hard find people outside of his line of work who'd talk about his job so easily, people went around the issue, fearing to ask questions or get into the details, much less joke about it in such a relaxed manner.

"Yeah. But we'll see each other tomorrow, right?"

"If I don't sleep in until, like, noon. I'm gonna be dead honest, I'll probably be up until the early hours of the morning doing fuck knows what, odds are I'll wake up with some trippy 3 am comic idea scrawled onto some notebook paper. I'm not one for proper sleep, I can only go so many nights actually going to bed like a normal person, seriously. God," Gee responded, laughing. "But I'll try to make it just for you, sugar."

Frank could've sworn he felt heat rise into his face at the nickname, but they had parted ways before he could dwell on that.

That night was few and far between. Frank felt like his bones were turning into gel, oozing under his skin, he was so exhausted. He found himself curled up with multiple blankets and quilts, the heater low to keep the bill that way, too, as he watched old punk concerts on his old computer. He remembered the Green Day show he went to when he was thirteen, and how fucking insane it felt to be there, connected with all these people and connected to the band onstage, Billie Joe's voice sounding out into the scene with the instruments searing into the buzzing air along with him. Frank had felt like he was a part of something, and music was his escape from the absolute insanity of his life now.

Here he was, in his twenties watching old 90s concerts on the internet and shivering in his own shabby apartment. This wasn't where he expected to be, but at least it wasn't nothing. It was something, and despite everything being screwed up with the world, it was his something.

Halfway through a Black Flag show, Frank's cell phone buzzed next to where he was buried in quilts on the thrift store couch. He reluctantly snaked his arm out from the layers of fabric and checked the message. He was a little unprepared to see Gee's newly entered contact showing up on the screen, but he was happy. He liked talking to him, and listening to him, and he realized how badly he just needed someone like that right now.

**so I was wondering if you have any suggestions for horror movies?...**

Frank grinned, eyeing his little collection of slashers and thrillers with anticipation.

**come over sometime, because I've got a hell lot of them**

He sent the text, kind of unsure of where this suddenness came from but going with it regardless. Gee responded almost immediately.

**okay, I like this idea**

Frank's smile didn't fade for a while, and he was really into that. He was into whatever the hell this feeling was, and he definitely didn't want that to stop.

***

Sunday came with sleeting rain and a call from Patrick.

"Twenty-three dead. There's twenty-three trained professionals dead and no one knows how to even figure out what the fuck's going on."

The group that'd been sent out at the beginning was done taking care of things; or rather, trying to-- the news broke out the moment they'd been found that most of them were lying dead in the middle of the woods, drained and disregarded. Those that were missing were written off as having been turned, and the answer to the impending ultimatum of how much longer they could hold these creatures off hung heavy in the air.

Frank leaned back into the wall, almost feeling sick if Patrick hadn't finished relaying the results of what the few survivors had pieced together. "A coven. I don't know, something like that, but it's starting to look like a pretty big community of them."

That was more than a threat; it could be a death sentence, Frank thought, rubbing his eyes wearily in the haze of early morning.

"Alright. Just...I don't know. I don't know, Patrick."

"I don't either. Let's just try to get everything stabilized before we bring our reports in tomorrow...okay? I- I just think we're going to have long. Y'know. If we keep doing this, Frank."

Frank stared ahead, in dead silence.

"...y'know?" Patrick said, softer.

"I'm not quitting, if that's what you're suggesting," Frank answered, sharpness glinting on the edge of his voice. "You're fucking kidding me."

He could hear Patrick suck in a breath on the other end. "That's...no. I don't know. I'm sorry, Frank."

When there was no further response, he just hung up, leaving Frank to try and sort through the mess of thoughts that were beginning to spill over, no longer able to be buried down, burning at the edge of his throat.

And with that, he was crying.

He didn't know what hit him, but it slammed into his ribs in a way he could almost physically feel, the realization that none of this was working and likely never would.

He'd known this. Even when he began this nightmare when he was sixteen and the threat was far lower, he knew he was up against something beyond him or any of them, but he figured it would matter, that it would amount to something if he kept fighting against it.

It was fucking pointless, and he couldn't stop. Frank had thought there was something meaningful about what he did, that he was saving someone, somehow-- but each day was just a step closer to the end they all knew was coming. They'd failed, and that was inevitable.

"Fuck off. _Fuck off!"_ Frank screamed at himself, throwing the old mug in his hands to the floor without even pausing to take a breath. He watched the cold coffee pool around the shattered pieces on the old floor, not giving a shit, feeling his mind reeling from all the days and weeks and months and years the cracks had been accumulating. "Just fucking-- fucking stop, okay, _stop._ " He choked out a couple weak sobs and stared down, doing all he could to pry the suffocating darkness that was finally winning.

***

When Gee arrived and closed the door behind him, familiar striped scarf around his neck and shy smile on his lips, Frank could see he was concerned almost immediately.

"Hey, are you...you been crying? Oh god, I'm sorry--"

Frank shook he head, working up the right words to respond to rhe bluntness of the question. "It's fine, Gee. It's just my fucking job. I'm good."

And suddenly Gee had him enveloped in a embrace the whole thing completely throwing him off. Frank hadn't had someone hug in for god knows how long, and despite the friendly warmth in the gesture he felt his stomach practically leap upwards, wanting to melt into the boy with his arms around him.

"I can't imagine having to see the kinds of things you do, Frank. I'm so sorry-- I'm here if you wanna talk about it or you don't, either way. Really."

Frank just froze.

"...Hey," Gee said, firmly, still holding onto his shoulders. "I promise."

And Frank snapped out of the trance, shaking from the onslaught of emotion that had come back at Gee's words.

"Fuck. I don't know how to do this, okay? I fucking suck at it."

"At what, sugar?"

Frank's eyes were squeezed shut, his hand grasped tightly around Gee's arm as if for some kind of support.

"At...at friends, Gerard. At any of that."

The older man looked at him sadly, and Frank took several stuttered breaths before continuing.

"I don't know what the hell's wrong with me, everything's just so out control right now-- we've known each other for a week and I've pulled you into this shit. Don't apologize. I'm the one who's making this difficult, alright?"

Gerard looked him dead in the eyes, his expression a kind of caring Frank was less than used to.

"Okay."

They didn't push the moment any further.

As the emotion began to clear, Frank started to feel the dread ebbing away in Gee's presence, and a part of him almost wanted to thank him for that. In a way he wasn't even realizing, he already was helping him.

They ended up on the couch, some possibly-expired popcorn and the vhs cover of _Halloween_ next to them as the iconic style of a good slasher film played out before them. Gee, as it turned out, was very much into the macabre, but he'd had no idea where to even begin with getting into horror films. Frank, on the other hand, was an expert in this particular category of pop culture, and swore to Gee that he'd give him the best primer on cult horror that could be accomplished within a day.

By late afternoon they'd given up on their plan to scout out the classics, however, and were hanging out lazily chatting and sort of half-watching _Saw_ when Gee finally spoke out about the tension that still lingered in Frank's eyes.

"How much time do you spend thinking about mental illness, Frank?"

Frank ignored the frenzy of thoughts that flooded his conscious at the strange inquiry and did his best to consider the question at least somewhat rationally.

"I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I'm losing my mind, yeah."

"But do you think about what that would mean and how to..." Gee trailed off, the ancient television flashing the images of gore and the sounds of brutality in tandem with their soft and careful words.

"To what?"

Gee paused, almost as if he were wishing he had stopped himself faster. That kind of apprehension, even just based off the short time Frank had known this weirdly enigmatic yet comforting man, wasn't like him. Frank gave him a pleading glance, showing him that he was okay with whatever it was Gee could throw at him.

"...how to be kind to yourself. Not fix things, but...how to make it easier."

"I just try to live it day by day. Maybe that's my mistake," Frank answered, laughing darkly. "I don't let myself think. I just try to block it out or numb it, which is a pretty fucked coping mechanism, I know, but that's about all I can afford to do."

"Not a big bad vampire slayer, oh no, he can't let himself be human sometimes. Absolutely against the rules." Gee grinned softly, the emotion in his expression spiking as he watched Frank smile a little in reply.

"I think everything I'm doing it pointless sometimes, Gee. I'm completely meaningless."

Gee's grin faded. "Yeah, me too."

"No- I mean, truly, completely useless. Me and everyone I know, all the people I watch come close to dying every day to fight off something we know we can't win against. Like...you just...you have to watch everything fall apart, and you keep saying to yourself 'I could do more, I'm too weak' at first, but slowly more and more people....they aren't afraid to just fucking say it, that none of this matters."

"And you believe that?"

Frank could feel his nails digging into his skin through his jeans, his head pounding in the way that always warned him he was losing it again; he focused in on Gee's hazel-green eyes, trying to keep everything in perspective as he spoke.

"I don't know what to believe, and that's starting to fuck everything up, Gerard. There's no absolutes."

He felt Gee wrap his arms around him again, and this time he let himself sink into it. He didn't care about who he was or wasn't or whether that was messing someone else up with him; he just steadied himself on the way Gerard's shoulder rose and fell with his breathing.

"I think that's the best part, actually. How nothing has an absolute. Everything is ambiguous, everything is open-ended, everything could be anything at all. It makes for nice art, anyway, and whenever I think about what's worth living for, it all leads back to that. Experiencing and creating art, seeing peoples' souls and letting them see yours."

Frank tried to pretend like this was a moment he could hold onto perpetually, a friend and a promise and a sense of hope. He knew it wouldn't last, but he pretended like it was forever, the feeling that this was going to be okay. Gee took a breath, and continued.

"I think it's worth just that alone, don't you think?"

***

The hours that were spent hung in the balance of what could happen next turned into days, and into weeks.

The Warehouse was fuller than ever, people rushing to file reports and send out group hunts. Frank found himself going out alone less and less, and it was only made harder as the details of more murders flowed in. The usual circumstances of people being killed alone in the dead of night were becoming stories of entire groups wiped out, the word war on the lips of a few blunt enough to say it, despite that being precisely what the last few years had felt like.

By January, seventeen people had left the Warehouse community. Ray was one of them, and by the looks of things Frank figured Patrick was soon to follow. He refused to bring it up, but for some reason the thought made him sick. Beyond the thought of watching him give up, Patrick was one of only so many people Frank could ever be around for very long here, and that amounted to something, he thought.

Frank let himself almost- _almost--_ feel everything that was rushing at him, but he still never talked about this to anyone but Gee.

Within the last few months Gerard and Frank had made a promise to try and meet up whenever possible, and Frank couldn't be more grateful for it. He felt whole when he was around him. There wasn't a hollow sensation of being broken, of being worn empty by what he'd become; they just exchanged stories of their experiences, of their individual demons, and it felt more real than anything had in a long time.

Sometimes, when they'd talk, Frank could swear he saw a flash of fear behind Gee's eyes when they were deep in conversation, trading personal secrets, but never did he think they had to be afraid to telling each other anything; at any rate, he decided if something was wrong, Gee would've spoken up about it.

"Hey," Gee stopped Frank quietly as he prepared to leave the cafe one morning.

Frank waited, eyes wide but familiar, safe. Talking to Gee was like a sort of home he'd forgotten what it felt like to have.

"It doesn't matter what you tell me. I swear, I'd never judge you for it," he continued lowly. "You're the most amazing person I've met in a damn long time. Just please take care of yourself, okay?"

Frank stopped, suddenly feeling the magnitude of the words sink in. Gee meant it, the look in his eyes promising him that he was something worth taking care of, that he was someone that he needed.

"I know, Gerard. I'm trying."

And with that, Gee squeezed his hand lightly and let him go.

***

"I've never stopped being in awe of how devoted to this you are, seriously."

Andy sat across from Frank on the Warehouse floor, the place nearly empty this late on a weekend night.

"In fact, it almost scares me. I think we both know you'd do it without the pension, without anything at all."

Frank nodded, slowly. He wasn't comfortable, really, with how unsure he was of where this was going.

"How much are you willing to do for this, Frank?"

"I went into this knowing it'd kill me at some point. That hasn't changed."

Andy watched him carefully, wrinkled stats and notebooks held in his hand. He was completely haggard, shivering in his hoodie slightly. "Good. That's good."

"Andy? Just go ahead."

"Alright."

He handed Frank a few documents, and began explaining:

"We think we've found a place, several miles out, where the stress levels are off the charts. It may be a coven, it may a high density area, we don't know. Obviously, they're not going to stay in one place very long if they're all operating on the same loop, so we're not sure how big our window of opportunity is. I need everyone who's willing signed on, because this could either be our last good shot or the thing that brings us down. Either way, something's going to break at some point. We might as well go down trying on our own accords."

Frank scanned through the data, but it all blurred together. None of it could say anything about what had just been proposed.

"You're basically asking for a suicide mission?" Frank asked him, solemn.

"No. I don't know, it could be a false alarm. There's no telling. Everything, literally _everything_ is up in the air and that's why we're doing this."

"Who's in on this?"

Andy handed him another sheet of paper. "That's the signatures of everyone on board. We got Patrick on there, too."

Frank looked up, shocked. "You seriously managed to convince him?"

Andy chuckled, dryly. "Yeah, it wasn't fucking easy, but that guy's got more perseverance in him than he lets on."

In a way, it did make sense; maybe Patrick saw this as a spot of hope, a breakthrough, or at least something worth dying for.

"You didn't even have to ask, Andy. I'm in."

***

Maybe Frank Iero lived in a wooded Northern town in the middle of nowhere, but he could've sworn this was nothing short of a snowy hurricane brewing. It was pushing February, and the coldest weeks were coinciding with all that was being planned.

Frank had his face buried in his coat, blinking rapidly as flakes started hitting his eyelashes. Sundown was casting the sky orange, and he jogged forward to try and get home before he was stuck out here in a pitch black snowstorm during a full out bloodbath of a vampire crisis.

Kurt Cobain crooned into his headphones, his raw voice letting go of words like they were pumping straight from his bones. Frank held onto the refrain like a lifeline:

_"I'm not gonna crack."_

The words had always reached into his soul and held a special place there, but whether it was the weight of all this time aching or the newfound anticipation that these could possibly be the last few days he had to hear this song's promise, right now he breathed through Kurt's voice. He thought about him, the enigma who poured his heart into the music but couldn't stop himself from cracking.

But in a way, he had still saved a part of himself, by leaving these words behind for people like him, Frank had always thought.

The orange was fading into ocher grey. He quickened his pace, his breath crystallizing in smoke-like puffs around him. The song switched, the guitars turning acoustic and somber.

And out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a raven flash of hair.

His throat raw in the dead cold, he called out almost immediately, his chest warming.

"Gee!"

The man was walking quickly, offering no response.

_"Gerard!"_ Frank tried again, his breath enveloping around him like a fog from the yell. It had been a few days since they'd last talked, and it had left this sort of lonely feeling taking hold inside of him since. He couldn't exactly describe how this made him, but seeing Gee was like home, he thought.

Frank missed him.

In a split second, Gee met his eyes from the distance, panic registering in them. He stumbled back in a state of shock; he turned on his heels and ran.

Frank remained rooted to the spot, trying to comprehend what was happening.

And then he ran after him.

He didn't care that night was setting in, he couldn't give a damn if he felt numb all over as he sprinted into the trees. "What the hell? Just-- wait up, okay, I don't know what the fuck--"

Frank stopped, panting and scouring the area around him, but finding nothing.

"Gee, please just tell me what's going on." There was no response.

He pulled out his gun, terror spiking in his stomach when he pictured Gee out here, nothing to fend off an attack. "Please, Gerard, I'm--" he gripped his gun tighter, trembling. "You're going to...you're gonna get yourself killed," he trailed off, feeling idiotic yet in complete confusion.

"You're right."

Frank looked up, and bounded forward at the voice.

He reached for Gee, taking him in his arms, but suddenly was shoved back. He tripped more from surprise than force, stopping his fall and crouching in the snow and dirt.

"I probably will, Frank. And every time I think I've got it..." Gee stared at him, dead on, his face in pain and his breath hiccuping like he was crying, but with no tears; "...I get a reminder that I'm a fucking disease."

Gee stood still, looking down, and then up again, his eyes gleaming.

The soft and speckled hazel was gone, awash in a piercing crimson.

Frank screamed. He actually screamed, feeling something break inside of him.

"Frank, I'm sorry--"

".. _How?_ How are you even...Gerard--"

"I'd never hurt you. I swear. I'd rather die than hurt you, or anyone, but I don't even know what side I'm supposed to be on. Okay?" Gee's voice cracked, and he collapsed, snow barely contrasting against his ghostly face skin. "I can't keep watching people die. It doesn't matter what kind. We're all going to hell and none of us deserve to die, maybe the ones that truly love to kill do, but it hurts. I just want _solace."_

Gee choked out the words, his nails digging at his face.

Frank didn't move.

"How...I just....how the hell did you manage to do that?" he finally croaked.

"What? Hide it?" Gee whispered, the cold not registering on his heat less body.

"I've never. Never-- I-I've never fucking seen anything like that. _Anything_."

Gee stared at him sadly, and gasped when Frank hesitantly held out a gloved hand.

"There's a lot you haven't seen, Frank."

None of this made any sense, and Frank suddenly let the fact that nothing ever did, nothing ever would wash over him. Everything was reeling, screaming neon colors of horror and surreal, but all he knew was the life he lived and the boy in front of him who'd made it worthwhile.

"Then...maybe you could show me."

***

Never had Frank thought he'd be who he was in that moment.

He had helped Gee up from the ground, the vampire weak and keeping his hands on his arms to stay steady.

"I need to get home," he had whispered.

"I'll stay with you."

So Frank held onto him, supporting his weight as they slowly made their way out of the overcast of the forest and back out into the dim light of the town. Gerard hid his face in his hood, his eyes glazed over and half shut as Frank kept his arm around his waist at the crumbling bus stop, cursing the unreliable nature of the local transportation system.

When a city bus finally came around the street, Frank hastily paid the driver and helped Gee to the back corner without either saying a word.

"Gee?" Frank eventually said gently. He was still swimming in shock, but he pushed that aside.

"Yeah?" the older man answered, his face buried in Frank's shoulder.

"Do you...how have you survived?"

Gee looked up, tired behind the gauntness of his eyes.

"I'll explain when we get home. It'll be okay."

***

The house was, it turned out, not one but three bus rides from the city. Frank and Gee spent the night on the road, wrapped up in each other. Gee tried to pay for the rides, but Frank refused.

When they finally made it off the last bus, Gerard was nearly unconscious in Frank's arms. The younger man panicked, keeping him close.

"How do I- where do we go?"

Shakily, Gee pointed at a mess of trees to their left.

"...what?" Frank muttered, a trip into the woods at this time the last thing on his to-do list.

"Shh," Gee tried to reassure him quietly, but then his knees buckled into near full-on collapse.

Frank helped him into the grass, laying him down. "I need to know how to help you, Gee."

"Go straight ahead. Mikey's waiting."

Frank didn't even bother to ask who Mikey was; he just followed Gee's directions without questioning any of it.

The night was buzzing around him, the trees casting everything in midnight blue-black. Frank looked around frantically, but nothing came into focus.

"Mikey? Gee- h-he told me to get you-- he's--"

"Fuck," a breathless answer came, and a boy a couple years younger than him rushed out to embrace him. "Thank you, fuck."

The boy stepped back, glasses resting askew on his nose and his messy hair covered in a winter hat. He looked a little like Gee, and Frank realized who this must be. It occured to him that not once did Gee mention any family.

"You're his brother, aren't you."

Mikey nodded, and hurried to meet where Gee was laying on the ground by the road.

"Hey. Gee, I'm right here. Look at me." Mikey brushed Gerard's hair out of his face, pulling something out of his bag. A thermos, Frank noticed.

Gee took it in his hands, bringing it to his lips gratefully and sighing as he drank. Frank could see the thick red glistening on his lips, and the panic was setting in with fervor. He stepped back, cursing himself and collecting his breath.

"It's okay, Frankie. It's pretty fucking weird, I know," Gee said with a soft giggle.

His hazel eyes came into focus, his skin losing some of its pale starkness and the fangs that had been protruding having disappeared once more. He looked so achingly human that Frank walked over to sit beside him and actually felt himself crying.

"None of this makes much sense at all, really. But it's fine," he told him, lacing his fingers with his and feeling the warmth return to Gee's body.

Mikey helped him up, and Gerard promised him he was well enough to walk on his own now despite keeping his hand with Frank's. The three made a run for the trees, Mikey leading to way to where a gathering of trailers and run down mobile homes had collected in the width of a large clearing.

There were very few lights apart from some old holiday strings hanging among the trees, but even in the dark there was energy. A few children ran around, playing a textbook game of tag as they laughed freely, some with fangs glimmering in the dim light. A few teenagers were gathered around exchanging stories, the adults talking hushed amongst themselves and keeping their eyes on the younger people. Everyone was in varying degrees of identification as vampires, some essentially impossible to distinguish and some clear by first glance.

"Oh my god," someone breathed out as they made into the clearing.

A man with short black hair and fangs protruding from his mouth ran up to to them, worried.

"Jesus Christ, Gerard."

"I'm fine, Pete," Gee replied with a playful roll of his eyes. Mikey and Pete, however, exchanged knowing glances.

"Yeah, you were pretty close to passing out, is what you were," Mikey said.

Pete shook his head. "You're your own biggest enemy," he told Gerard, then looked at Frank with concern.

"So who's this?" he said, apprehensive.

Before either Frank could speak, Mikey held up a hand to dismiss Pete's worry. "Frank Iero. All I know is that my brother would trust him with his life, so he's fine in my book."

Pete gave Frank a short nod, and sighed. "Well, I've got a migraine and I'm taking it and myself inside, if you're coming," he told Mikey, who quickly agreed and followed him to the farthest home on the right.

"You'll be okay, Gee?" he asked before leaving. Gerard rolled his eyes again with a nod, waving him off.

"They're all over each other," he explained to Frank. "Especially since they've been dating, it's kind of cute and hilarious at the same time. It gets annoying sometimes, though."

Frank laughed, and let Gerard lead him off to his house. They stepped over toys and lights and people sitting around on the grass, at one point being stopped by a little girl holding a teddy bear, of which had tiny felt fangs stitched on its mouth.

"Hi, Gee! Hi, who's that?" the girl gushed, full of energy.

"This is Frank. He's a little scared, so we want to make sure we're super nice to him."

The kid grinned, waving wildly. "Hi, Frank! I'm Cherry, and everyone says I'm hyper, but I think they're just being _dramatic_ ," she said before running off to chase another kid.

"They're all so happy, you know? They don't know what's going on, only that this is another change in their hectic lives. Most of them are actually not much older than they are physically, but either way they're trapped in childhood perpetually. Sometimes I'm a little jealous of that," Gerard said with a laugh.

Frank watched them run around, thinking about their innocent lives being forever on the pause button. Something they had no control over, yet these kids were perfectly sane and gentle, not at all like the monsters he'd grown up fighting against.

It didn't make any sense, but he trusted Gee.

Once inside the house, Gee pulled off his coat and gave it to the shivering human boy in front of him, smiling as if he'd seen the cutest thing on the planet. Frank chuckled amidst his violent shaking, sitting down on the edge of the nearest chair in the kitchen and bundling himself up as best he could. Gee sat beside him, watching him carefully.

"You want anything?" he offered, but Frank shook his head. "What would you even have, anyway?"

Gerard grinned and opened the refrigerator. "Peanut butter ice cream, orange juice, strawberry brownies..."

"Jesus Christ," Frank said, knowing very well that vampires didn't need to eat, to which Gee simply shrugged. "Just 'cause we don't need it doesn't mean we can't have it."

"Touche."

Gee sat back down, rubbing Frank's back as he continued to shiver in the unheated room.

"So...I've never met a vampire that strong," Frank began, nodding at Gerard's practically human appearance. The stronger a vamp was, the easier they could hide away their features, but Gee was a entirely different story. "You're so powerful that you manage to produce your own heat, I just don't _understand_."

"There's a lot of things you know about vampires, Frank. And there's a lot of lies you've been told about us, too."

"And...what do I really know, then?"

"We're not wired to kill, Frank. We need human blood to survive, but there are so many of us that couldn't bear to get that through violence. The monsters you've seen? They've been driven to desperation, insanity, many of them either newborns who don't know where to turn or madmen that have spent years hungry and brainwashed by vampires who don't care that they're killing. We're not supposed to be like that. We're every bit at human as you are, but something just snapped when we were cast off from the rest of you. Vamps lost their minds, good people, people with heart."

"Then how come you weren't trying to drain the blood from my body when you were practically starving out there earlier?" Frank asked, stunned.

"If a newborn isn't fed, given the proper guidance, that's what happens. They're fragile people, and what happens to them then can affect them for years, if not permanently.

"And of course, there's the matter of those few vampires that really don't care, who get high off the adrenaline of the kill and know all too well what they're doing is murder. Those are the ones that you find stalking small towns, leaving people dead left and right," he said, giving Frank a look of importance. "Those are what the vast majority of the deaths are caused by. They hate us as much as they hate you, so you can only imagine what vampires-- real ones, those of us who understand how to survive and keep the peace-- are up against. I don't know how many humans out there know that vamps like us exist, there's a lot that do-- but that doesn't stop them from finding us..." Gee trailed off, looking almost in pain. "They kill any vampire they see. Even those that know who we are, they don't give a shit. They see a problem and they decide to kill children, families, lovers, because of the destruction of a separate evil we have to deal with as much as they do."

Frank swallowed, tears back at it again as they tore from his eyes like they were burning.

"I've spent my entire life hating you all, I've spent my entire life seeing you as nothing but monsters, and this is what's been hidden from me?" he spoke like he was about to break into pieces.

Gee wrapped his arms around him, his own tear-less immortal version of crying rising in his throat. "That's not for you to worry about. You've been taught this, all you've seen is the evil and the pain out there. It's not like that, and we're all trying to figure this out."

Frank shook his head, silent.

"You've killed monsters. You've killed people that do not care about others' or their souls, only their own greed. It's okay, Frankie."

"That's...t-that's not true."

Gee studied him sadly. "It's alright. I promise."

"No- it's n-not, listen, I can't tell you how many innocents I've probably killed, Gee. I fucking can't, but I bet there's a ton of them that wouldn't dare hurt anyone and I slayed them the moment I could. All I saw was the evil I'd seen, and all they could do was fight back because I had a fucking gun at their throat and a stake at their chest. I've spent years, and I don't know how many I killed between the evil and the innocent, but that's what I became obsessed with. It's- it was my life, I mean, I don't even know how to reconcile it at this point."

"Frankie."

He looked at Gee, his head pounding.

"That's why we need your help," Gee told him softly. "You have a genuine soul. You know what's going on now, and you care. Please don't tear yourself apart with guilt. You've all been put under these pretenses, and all we can do now is understand and forgive ourselves, okay? I'm not going to let you blame yourself for a war that exists to destroy innocent people like you who are just trying to do the right thing."

"I don't know, Gee. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too. We're all sorry, and we're going to keep fighting for a future that isn't like this. Somehow, but we're gonna make it. I swear."

It was something tender, something without any barriers or fears when Gerard touched his lips to Frank's forehead, and Frank let him, just leaning into the feeling.

"'Sorry," Gee muttered, a little regretfully as if he were scared he'd done something wrong; but Frank shook his head.

"What would you do if I kissed you right now, Gee?"

The older man giggled breathlessly, the suggestion leaving him biting his lip and nodding with that same gorgeous smile he always wore, the one that never ceased to set that warm feeling in Frank's chest on fire.

"You're probably a much better kisser than I am, be warned," Gee told him, but Frank shook his head.

"I haven't kissed someone in nearly a decade, Gerard."

Gee grinned, forehead pressed to his. "And who might that've been?"

"Well," Frank began, his hand moving from Gee's shoulder to his chest, breathing shallowly. "I was fourteen."

"Yeah?"

"And I was just completely overwhelmed, so I told him he was an angel, and he kissed me."

Frank tucked a strand of Gerard's messy hair behind his ear. "Sadly, teen love doesn't tend to last very long, but that's okay."

"That's a lovely story."

And Gee kissed him, right there and right then.

It was slow at first, both were afraid of screwing up, but then became more passionate as they relaxed into each other.

"Why did you come?" Frank asked, breathing heavy as he pulled away briefly.

Gee look at him, settling into his lap and hovering his mouth against his jawline.

"I mean, why did you leave here. Go into town. Risk it."

"I just wanted something halfway off the course of normal again. Something human. I do it everywhere this group moves to, gets me into lots of trouble," Gee said with a smirk. "And this time around, I met you, which screwed a lot of things up."

"Wow."

"You know what they used to call vampires?" Gee asked, taking Frank's hand and circling his thumb softly on the skin. "People used to say were were angels, like the boys you fell for when you were young. Vamps were called the _Seraphim,_ angelic creatures. There's stories, you know, of how things used to be different between your kind and mine. It's possible. I truly believe it is."

And Frank was so in love with this boy, the way he was so connected to all the words he spoke, all the hope and forgiveness and pureness that was just him, he didn't even know how to express it.

So he simply kissed him, hard.

"I think I like you, Frankie." He giggled as sweetly as ever, and Frank couldn't take all of this, the things this boy was doing to his heart.

"I think I feel a lot more than _like_ for you, Gerard."

"Oh, really? And what's that?"

Frank touched his lips to his collarbone before looking back into those hazel eyes.

"I'm not sure. But I'd like to stick around and find out, together."

This was when Gee pulled him in, holding on to Frank like he was the only thing in the universe. "I'd love that."

"I love you," he said, and they realized how true that was. It was something they hadn't needed to say, really- it was already what their overwhelmed hearts knew all along.

***

They sat in the booth, curled up in the corner with Gee resting himself against Frank as they sipped their coffee in the familiar cafe, close but quiet with the tension of what was looming over them.

"You'll look for me, right?" Gee asked, so tired that Frank could see a faintest glaze of red mixed with hazel in his eyes, his skin paler than he could usually manage. "It could end up nearly impossible once the chaos of everything starts, I know. But I'll do everything I can."

Frank promised him that he'd do everything he could, too, kissing his cheek just to add to the weight of the promise.

***

The world slipped in and out of focus on days like these.

It was like the very air knew what was going on in this little town, what was building in those very moments that the wind blew through the place with less ferocity than usual; the weather felt almost on the verge of chilly spring, the sun dancing with the usual silver clouds. Winter was letting go, unable to bear to watch.

Early morning came and went with hardly any sound, the young people who knew what lay ahead quietly making their way to their destination, occasionally nodding to each other solemnly when they made eye contact. The rest of the city remained asleep, unaware.

"You ready for this, Iero?"

Frank turned to the voice beside him. Lindsey was one of the most respected slayers in the organization, but she never let on like that. She gave him a sad smile before continuing on her way, and for some reason this struck a nerve. All of them, even people like her, could be dead before the the sun rose tomorrow morning. He froze to steady his breaths.

_Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight_

With a final breath he picked up his feet and kept going. There was a lot more at stake than that, even if none of the rest of them knew that.

He knew what he had to do. Gee told him it wasn't worth it, that they would come and help them fight knowing they'd be seen as no different-- but Frank wasn't going to let more people die who could be saved.

That was why he started this all that time ago, wasn't it?

_Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,_

At the Warehouse, people trickled into the grounds with weapons and stone cold waiting, something caught between the the magnitude of their determination and their dread. Frank reminded himself that these were not the people that wrote out the fake legacies, that spread the falsehoods; that he and the rest of them had something to forgive themselves for if they were willing to open their eyes.

There was one shot at this.

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

Patrick's expression turned to fear when he and Frank met; not of him, or of the nature of what they were all prepared to do-- but of the secrets Frank had told him. First rule of riding the current of a life-and-death world: don't trust anyone at all.

But he, Frank knew, was not about to break their plan. Frank remembered the shock and the horrific guilt that flooded Patrick's face when he told him what the cruel world neglected to mention, the reality of the people who were not monsters, not diseases, but every bit as real and human as they were. They were here to destroy the evil for their nature, not for what they were. Frank could tell who cared about the world and the souls and hearts that lived in it. Patrick was with him to the end on this.

The two slayers entered the compound without speaking a word, looking at the spreadsheets and maps strewn across the concrete floor, the wooden crates and platforms that made makeshift desks and storage mostly empty.

A lone writer sat at desk, scanning and studying in a frenzy of motion.

"Andy?" Patrick asked, refusing to allow his voice to shake.

The man looked up, his hair greasy and his eyes sunken with exhaustion behind his glasses.

"We need to talk to you."

Andy chewed on his lip, nodding. "Doesn't everyone need to talk to somebody right now?" he replied with a weak laugh.

"Seriously. This is...bigger than any of us." Frank sat down beside him.

"It always is isn't it? Shoot."

Frank sighed, shaking off all of his tension before speaking:

"Have you ever encountered... stable vampires?"

The question rang hollow in the largely empty facility, give for them. Patrick didn't move, watching intently as Andy's face flashed with an infinite mix of reactions.

"What?" he finally managed, nearly inaudible.

"Stable. Completely nonviolent, human, harmless."

"Vampires aren't fucking humans, Iero. What the hell is a 'harmless' vampire?"

But Frank was great at catching liars, and Andy was too blown away to stop him.

"I think you know what I'm talking about, Hurley."

The strings were snapping, and he could feel it. Andy snapped at Patrick, eyes dark. "So you're into whatever the fuck this is, too?"

"Y-You don't have to get so--"

"Do you even know what you're suggesting? The audacity to actually say something like that?"

_"Hurley!"_

Frank stood up, facing him dead-on.

"Andy, our world is not defined by the horror of people who don't give a shit. If that was the case, we be killing all humans for the actions of murderers. There are fucking children out there. There are people who are being slaughtered because of some age-old creed that they're somehow wrong or unnatural--"

"Iero, I'm going to count to three or I will pull out my fucking gun. On both you. I swear," Andy hissed, his fingers at his pocket.

Patrick looked at Frank in terror, who jumped away with his hands out. "Listen to me, Hurley, how can--"

"I don't care what they're supposed to be like. I don't care how many of the sane outnumber the insane. This our fucking world, and it's our job to get these bastards off of it whether or not they prefer their food dead or pre-packaged. It's all coming from us. _It's our blood, it's our land, it's our future and I assure you nobody here is interested in handing that over for the sake of some monsters that pretend they know how to be normal!"_

Patrick suddenly whipped out his pistol, the weapon quivering in his hand.

"People already know things. People are gonna figure this out, but if we want this bloodbath to stop--" he started, but Andy glared.

_"One."_

_"Hurley, Jesus Christ!"_

"Your services are no longer needed here, Stump. Same goes for you, Iero. I'll be putting in some words with the law about you especially. _Two_."

Patrick turned on his heel and sprinted to the exit, grabbing Frank's wrist to pull him along. Frank stumbled over the cracked and uneven floor, barely processing the all the anger and despair that was channeling through the adrenaline in his eardrums, just the slam of the door behind them.

In the grounds, heads turned, but Patrick looked down, ignoring them as Frank followed in suit.

As they neared the end of the field, Lindsey muttered something to them.

"Don't bother."

Frank whipped around, Patrick scrambling to try and stop him but with no success.

"What?"

Lindsey closed her eyes. "I tried that years ago. The best thing to do is just let them take care of their work here. If there's a threat, we have to stifle it. There's not time for semantics. I should know."

"You were listening in on us? And how--"

"People leave the Warehouse for far more reasons than fear, Iero. There's people who fall into the whole pacifist vampire society, trying to help, and they end up dead because they've got enemies on either side. Their bodies are found, or if they're lucky the survive and disappear. Don't lose yourself to that, Frank. You're one of the bravest people I know."

The words hung in the air, heavy, tremendous.

"You fucking _know,"_ Frank seethed, but before he could say anything else, the coordinators gathered up at the front of the lawn, ordering everyone forward. Lindsey left immediately, pulling out her stake and gun to join the rest. Patrick let out a small gasp when Andy exited the compound, gun still in hand, and dragged Frank away from the crowd, eyes wide.

"No, Patrick, fucking stop-- they know, they're--"

"We don't know how many of them are aware, Frank, c'mon, we need to leave _now._ "

Frank finally let Patrick pull him away from the gathering, feeling so sick he could barely make sense of the sky above their heads.

***

Mikey didn't flinch when Gee told them the odds.

Pete grimaced, and Frank could feel the burning clawing up at his throat in panic despite all he did to remain calm.

The four of them- Mikey, Pete, Frank, and Gerard-- were currently crowded in the kitchen of the Way's trailer, a flimsy card table serving as their permanent makeshift dining table. The rest of the community was busying themselves to rushed packing and hitching trailers to worn out cars, the commotion outside unsteady and unsure.

"There's only a few of us who are doing this. If push comes to shove, the rest of our neighbors will continue on just fine without us. We're going to get out of here well before sunset, by the time they come around they'll all be long moved out," Pete offered, although Gee shook his head, handing him Frank's coordinates from the Warehouse.

"That's not neccessarily true. This whole plan of theirs is...sketchy, to say the least. There's a lot of ambiguity, but anywhere in this area of the woodlands seems to be fair game for them. We could be facing a manhunt stretching for miles upon miles, who knows how many of them are intent on giving up so soon, if ever," he explained grimly. "We're hoping we've got plenty of time to avoid the fallout, but honestly? There's no way to know."

There was a brief pause, the heavy silence holding them in place, before Mikey sighed and broke it.

"Guess we'd better get our stuff from outside, then."

Within the hour the whole place was virtually cleared out; children without families and people without lovers just as Gee had said, leaving another home once again to hit the road. There was no shock or panic, just the swift movement of people who were well accustomed to having to leave everything behind at a moment's notice.

_We do this almost every month, sometimes within a week._ Gerard's words remained ingrained in Frank's head as he watched the clearing turn to bare grass again.

"Frank?"

Gee handed him the maps and data, a wooden dagger and a revolver in hand.

"I'm not going to leave your side," he promised, his hand brushing over Frank's cheek quickly before Mikey and Pete waved them along.

***

_God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:_

_Exit seraphim and enter Satan's men:_

_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._

Patrick had the car waiting for them, weapons of all sorts cast into the trunk of the off road vehicle, supplies and data scattered along the dashboard and the floor.

"We have about ten minutes until sundown, an hour or so until they're gonna be in the deep end of this forest. Everyone's got everything they need, right?" he asked, to a chorus of assertions. They crammed into the car, Mikey taking passenger seat by Patrick due to his directive ability, the rest gathered in the back. The way the sky was tinted amber so perfectly yet would see no appreciation in the anticipation of the chaos to come almost hurt, though nobody said a word about it.

Gerard kept his arm around Frank's waist in the backseat the entire time, as if afraid to let him go. Frank snuggled closer, acutely aware of how the fear in Gee's eyes sparked the slightest hint of red among the green and brown. It was beautiful, even if he hated seeing him like this. He was beautiful, just the entire meaning of the word, and Frank let him know this whenever possible.

"This could last for days, weeks, even," Gerard mumbled against Frank's cheek, his lips a little colder than usual. "But we're going to get out. It doesn't matter where we have to go, we're going to make it out of here."

Frank didn't answer this, knowing all too well how fragile these promises were in the face of what was coming.

So instead, he simply told Gee he loved him.

The sky was fading out, leaving them little time to prepare themselves. Mikey scanned the trees and underbrush around them as they drove past, keeping the maps and directions spread across his lap as he muttered instructions to a concentrated Patrick, the group otherwise quiet and listening to the engine against the sway of tree leaves above their heads.

The first glance was dark, mostly hidden against in the greenery to the side of their path. Pete gasped, eyes wide as the vamp eyed them madly, but deciding against taking their chances with a moving car full of armed vigilantes. Smart, Frank thought, but they were bound to have to deal with some who were less coordinated before they even made it to their destination.

Sure enough, the first slam of a knife into the passenger car window sent Mikey scrambling back against Patrick, who swerved and increased their relatively moderate speed. Regardless, the knife struck through the glass again, cracks reaching towards the frame within a matter of seconds. Their attacker had their hand gripped to the top of the vehicle, their feet in the doorstep; in the glare of the headlights Frank caught glimpse of several bodies scattered in the dirt, grey from blood loss and limbs bent crookedly. Gee squeezed his eyes shut, gripping Frank tightly in an effort to protect him-- then screamed when a bullet came crashing through their window, curling his body over Frank's. Pete cried out, clutching his neck in pain but without injury, the tear in his skin bloodless and harmless but clearly excruciating. Mikey turned back to look at him, looking heartbroken to see his boyfriend in such a state but having to keep his focus on the assailant at his own window.

"Fuck you!" Mikey ended up screaming in frustration, pulling the steering wheel against Patrick's hands and slamming the vampire against a dying tree and effectively throwing them off the car. The impact shook the entire vehicle, its inhabitants rushing to grip onto their seats before they sped off.

"Jesus, Mikey. That was-- holy shit," Patrick finally managed, still in shock. 

Mikey didn't respond; he simply reached back to take Pete's hand in his, holding tightly for a few calm moments before the next wave came.

Frank pulled out his gun, holding it outside their shattered and exposed window. "Here we go..." he growled as a vamp approached them, fangs still gleaming scarlet from a kill. Frank prepared for the fight, but both the car and the would-be attacker were thrown off by the sudden shrill scream of rapid gunfire.

_"Go,"_ Gerard hissed.

The operation had started.

Immediately, there was a blast from their left, shooting out the back tire. Patrick slammed on the brakes as its counterpart was destroyed as well, the vehicle threatening to collide with the trees. They knew this would happen, but it didn't stop the shock from settling into Frank's veins. This was it.

He kicked the door open, sprinting from the car and rushing to keep Gee with him. They ducked under branches and buried themselves in the underbrush. Pure, unadulterated panic flashed in Gerard's face, his hand on his bulletproof vest in an age-old instinct; he had to protect the only vulnerable part of him if he wanted to live through this, and Frank prayed to god the thing did its job of protecting Gee from the blade of some ruthless's stake.

"I- I don't see Patrick," Gee whispered, keeping Frank close against him; after all, the younger boy was human, rendering his entire form vulnerable. "I think I see Mikey and Pete on the other side. They've taken off," Frank muttered.

"God, I don't-- you're so fragile, Frankie, I'm so fucking scared."

Frank laced his fingers with Gee's, giving him a hardened look.

"I've lasted this long, Gerard. I'll be okay. Just for you, I swear I'll be alive at the end of this," he whispered before the two were forced to disconnect and pull the triggers of their guns in the direction of their next killer. The vamp fell to the ground, struggling to get up before Frank watched Gee raise his stake, shaking a little, and bring it down with a small whimper of remorse. He was no stranger to this, Frank knew, but he also had the kindest heart of anyone he'd known in perhaps his entire life; and even he wasn't immune to the act of watching someone's life melt from their eyes.

Machine gunshots shook the very air around them, screams and the sound of bodies hitting the ground reverberating infinitely. Gee looked down at the dead figure at his feet, sniffling and running back to join Frank.

"Let's go," he said, and with that they burst out from the small protection of the thick plant life, running across the path where the car still remained, wheels smoking with their destroyed tires laying several yards away.

Once in the next thicket, they wound their way closer to the epicenter of the fighting, keeping low and staying silent as they scanned for familiar faces.

_Boom._ Grenade one exploded by the edge of the thicket, sending several vamps stumbling backwards and rendering a few people motionless in the leaves. Frank held onto Gee's arm, feeling the awful warmth of blood splattering against the side of his face. He quickly wiped it away, his throat burning from all the running through the cold night.

In the clearing where gunfire proliferated, there was a sudden uproar.

_"Stop, listen to me!"_

The plea rang sharp into the darkness, followed by a scream.

In the midst of the clearing, a boy no older than Frank had a stake shoved through his back, limp. Frank recognized him from the community, and terror hit him hard.

_"Gerard, they've found them."_

Gee nodded, shocked, pulling Frank back into the bushes as the boy's killer turned their way.

Ray held up his gun, expressionless.

"C'mon, fuckers," he said, finger straining against the trigger. Gee stood up.

"Stop, we're-- we're human, god," he stuttered, and Ray dropped his rifle to his side slowly, buying Gee's powerful ability of disguise. In a split second, he was sprinting away, dagger raised and firing at another vamp, this one clearly against them.

The boy on the ground, however, was no enemy. Frank knew that much.

Gee rushed forward, choking out a small sob as he pulled the boy close.

"Brendon, oh god," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, oh my god."

The boy was already motionless, long gone, but Frank felt every sob that shook through Gee's shoulders, reaching down and enveloping him in his arms.

"We have to leave him, Gee," he said with a voice he didn't even realize was caught in his throat until then, tears falling. Gerard knew this boy; who knows how long they had been in the group together. And now, Gee was watching his friends die at the hands of people who couldn't care less.

They had been too fucking late.

The violence was reaching an epitome, figures blurring together as they were laying with their life slipping away on the grass, the sound creating an unbearable wall of noise. Gee's entire body shook with sobs as he pulled away from the dead vampire boy, leaving him in the leaves with the canopies stretching above him before he joined Frank in finding their next route.

Then, Gee gasped.

"Holy fuck-- Patrick!" Frank yelled, and a man turned around with enormous relief evident on his features. Patrick ran forward, blood dripping from his hair and his eyes shell-shocked, but safe nonetheless.

"I don't know how many are-- I'm so sorry, Gerard. I'm so fucking sorry. I don't know how many of them survived," he said. His glasses were cracked, one of the lenses gone completely, but he seemed not to notice.

"We should've warned them sooner." Frank swallowed, coughing on his own blood that had run from his busted lip. "I had a shot at saving them, we had an opportunity, if I hadn't--oh god."

Patrick gripped his shoulders. "Listen, Frank. You are not going to blame yourself for anything that happens tonight, okay? You are not. There's no fucking time to feel guilty. We're trying to do what we can, and there's no way to predict how--"

He slumped forward.

Gee screamed, and Frank fell down with him in shock. The bullet had lodged itself straight into Patrick's stomach, a perfect shot, a perfect kill under his vest.

Frank pulled him forward, but felt Gee yank him away, arms around him protectively.

"Gerard, he's--"

"I'm sorry. I love you Frank, I want to help him, but we have to get away from here."

As Gee spoke several vamps surged at Patrick, and Gee pulled him into the thicket once again, dagger ready.

One of the attackers turned, Patrick's blood still on her mouth.

"Oh, who's the pretty one?" she snapped, her gun pointed at Gee as she eyed Frank. "Cause you're fucking joking if you think you've got the upper hand in this."

With that, Gee ducked and pulled Frank against his chest. The vampire kicked into his back roughly, bullets hitting him along his spine as he choked back a scream. She aimed a shot at Frank, but Gee shoved her down by her legs and froze as she phased out, his dagger cutting off her attack.

Gee cried into Frank, who realized just then that a bullet had cut deeply through his arm and instinctively reached down to grab it.

"Oh--" he gritted his teeth, head lowered as the atmosphere around him washed in and out of clarity.

The older man quickly realized what was happening and tore off his jacket, wrapping it tightly around the wound and helping the younger to his feet.

The trees were starting to meld together, stars straining against the sky, grass shaking under Frank's feet. He tried to tell Gee to stop, to leave him here, but his voice felt disconnected from his body. Gee's arms felt like they were blending into his own as he tripped, the older steadying him against his own body.

_We're going up there,_ Frank thought he could here, Gee motioning at the mountains, the only escape route as the violence spread out into the city, something snapping in the world as it broke into a living hell. Frank nodded, or at least tried to through the sudden dizziness that racked through him.

_We're gonna be alright, Frankie. You're going to make it, just hang on, okay? You promise?_

_You can do that for me, right Frankie?_

Gee carried him through the underbrush, the thicket giving way to higher ground and the noise fading dimly behind them.

And even through the haze of all the pain that seared through him, Frank could understand that whatever they had been up against all this time was something bigger than all of them, all the sums of the dead laying drained or staked or torn on the ground, bigger than all the gnashing teeth and clashing daggers, the gunshots that sliced through the air; it was something that wasn't a battle, wasn't a war-- it was a lifetime, and there were no answers anymore.

It wasn't that he was meaningless, he thought, that he was helpless-- everyone was, against themselves.

"What about- we never found out where Pete and Mikey..." Frank stopped as another wave of pain shot through his wound, clutching to Gerard with all that he had left.Gerard didn't speak until they reached the edge of the next clearing, laying Frank down in the grass as he rested his head in his lap.

"We'll find them eventually," Gee finally said with a broken voice. Frank grabbed his hand, lacing his fingers tightly as the world swam around his eyes, trying to focus on something, _just something,_ the stars, maybe...

_I love you_ rang softly in his ears.

***

When day broke, they had no choice but to keep going.

There was no point in looking back, in trying to find the life they had again; there was no telling what lay outside of the space that Gee was able to hold Frank close in, the jagged edges of hills leading to rougher cliffs up above as they followed the range. If they were lucky, they could find a way onto the interstate, leave town, go from there. There was no plan, nothing certain. Just each other.

Frank had the image of the boy laying in the grass with the stake through his back burned into his mind; he saw Patrick lying on the ground from a bullet and the thirst of gleaming fangs, he still saw all the bodies strung across the ground, nothing, no promises to save them.

He tried to blur them out, push the thoughts away like he used to, but something inside him felt broken. It didn't work anymore.

Nothing worked like it used to anymore. His thoughts, his soul, his emotions; he thought about the way Mikey looked at Pete when he gripped his hand in the car, if they were out there or in another life, maybe, if something came after this one; maybe they were together. Maybe that was what saved them, maybe everyone had something or someone to get saved by if they could find it. He didn't know, and as much as it hurt, he couldn't stop thinking about it.

But when Gee helped him up and kissed him gently, his long hair falling into his face, Frank thought that was possible.

Gee had made a promise, and while even the whole wide world couldn't keep its own promise to the souls that lived on it, Frank trusted with something deeper than he'd ever known; he believed in the strength of that promise.

Because in that moment he realized he had made a promise, too.


End file.
